College and Research Libraries BOB CARMACK and TRUDI LOEBER The Library Reserve System:...._ Another Look In a detailed study of reserve book circulations at the University of Nebraska, the authors found that the percentage of titles never cir- culated rises rather sharply for course lists longer than twenty titles. On the average, of lists with 1-20 titles, 33 percent never circulated; of lists with 21 or more titles, 42 percent never circulated. Conclusions and corrective actions are discussed. THE RATIONALE most often used in jus- tifying the existence of a collection of materials on limited circulation, i.e., closed reserve, is that a professor needs to refer his students to specific books for a particular course that he is teach- ing in a place convenient for use by his students. It is further assumed that these books, having been placed on reserve, are used. In practice, however, this is not neces- sarily the case. During the academic year 1968-69, a study was made which measured the use of the central reserve system on the city campus of the Uni- versity of Nebraska at Lincoln. The sta- tistical data gathered were of such im- pact that they necessitated a thorough reexamination of Nebraska's entire re- serve program. The forces leading to this survey were many. There was an increasing aware- ness on the part of librarians that many of the titles on central reserve were not being used. In addition, . the mammoth task of updating reserve lists and proc- Mr.. Carmack ~ Undergraduate Librari- an, and Miss Loeber is Assistant Librarian, Social Studies Division, the University of Nebraska. essing new titles at the beginning of each semester had librarians asking if there was not a better way to handle reserves. Also, with two major expan- sions forthcoming in library facilities, the need for a system which could be adapt- ed to any part of the library reserve pro- gram was recognized. This was particu- larly true for the new Undergraduate Li- brary which opened for public use in March 1970. As one of its functions, th·e Undergraduate Library maintains and services a reserve collection for courses numbered below 200. 1 This collection duplicates materials already available at the central reserve desk in the main library. Concurrently, there was a gen- eral questioning of the need for, and the place of, a reserve book system in the teaching program of the university, a discussion which centered at adminis- trative as well as faculty levels. Some background information might be helpful in explaining the statistical information · which follows. The library at the University of Nebraska ·is orga- 1 At the University of Nebraska courses num- bered in the OOG-199 series are generally low- er division classes, while 200-300 courses are largely at the senior and graduate levels. I 105 106 I College & Research Libraries • March 1971 nized in the traditional divisional sub- ject areas: humanities, social studies, and sciences. Education, although a part of the social studies division is treated as a separate entity because of the large number of titles on reserve. Structurally, with the exception of the bulk of the science materials, the collections are lo- cated in the Don L. Love Memorial Li- brary. Within Love Memorial Library the collections are housed either in the College Library, a collection of basic books essential to the needs of the under- graduate student, or the central book stacks, which predominately contain re- search materials. Science books are housed in branch libraries for specific disciplines: chemistry, physics, mathe- matics, architecture, geology, and the life sciences. In addition, there are two major branch libraries, the Law Library and the C.Y. Thompson Library. The latter is located on the East Campus of the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and serves primarily the colleges of Ag- riculture and Home Econon1ics. The li- brarian of the C.Y. Thompson Library is also responsible for the College of Den- tistry Library on the East Campus. The reserve book system in use in Love Library is a closed operation with all material in a centralized location. Ma- terials may circulate for two hours, over- night, or one week. Faculty may request as many titles for reserve as they feel are necessary for their courses. However, each list is examined by the professional librarian responsible for a particular dis- · cipline before the titles are processed for reserve. This examination includes a title by title evaluation as well as a veri- fication of information such as author, title, call number, and location in con- formity with the request. The librarian then determines, working with the fac- ulty member involved, the length of the loan period, the number of copies ne~d­ ed, and if special handling is required. In the case of ' faculty requests which present an extraordinarily long list of ti- tles, the librarian also checks to see if all the titles are necessary for closed re- serve or if better arrangements could be made to utilize the material. The method used in this study was a one-year (two-semester) analysis of each title on reserve. As each book was placed on reserve two records were pre- pared as part of the normal routine-a 3 x 5 course card and an individual charge-out slip for each book. The course card information included author, title, call number, number of copies, course number, name of professor, length of reserve, and number of previous se- mesters on reserve. The charge-out rec- ord contained author, title, call number, copy number if applicable, and spaces for charge-outs. At the end of each se- mester, data were tabulated from each charge-out record and matched to the course card. The sample included only material available for circulation at the central reserve desk in Love Library. The decision to provide information for each title rather than a sampling of titles was made for a variety of reasons. It was felt that to effectively study and evaluate the reserve program as much information as possible was needed. In addition, the desire to provide faculty members with a record of transactions for their particular titles so that they might become aware of actual reserve usage, and thus share in the evaluation, was also recognized. Potential automa- tion of reserves, the formation of a single system-wide reserve program, and an at- tempt to identify a core collection of re- serve books, were other factors involved in the comprehensive title-by-title ap- proach to this study. Table 1 shows the number of titles available, the number of copies avail- able, and the number of checkouts per semester. These are broken down by sub- ject divisions. In tabulating the results of Table 2 we Library Reserve System I 107 TABLE 1 First Semester Subject Divisions Humanities Sciences Social Studies Education Titles 861 70 1,328 1,327 3,586 Copies Checkouts 1,362 4,746 105 492 2,990 11,122 3,302 6,772 -- 7,759 23,132 Second Semester Subject Divisions Humanities Sciences Social Studies Education Titles 567 175 1,042 1,412 3,196 were surprised by the uniformity of the figures across the broad spectrum of knowledge as well as at all course levels. The consistency throughout the subject disciplines was particularly interesting because we had anticipated being able to identify specific departments who were not utilizing the program effective- ly. There were, however, some 390 few- er titles for the second semester. This de- crease is reflected in the number of titles which did not circulate. The drop in the number of noncirculating titles was the result of a strong letter from the library staff to each faculty member who had had books on reserve for the fall semester of 1968. This letter, accompanied by checkout statistics, outlined the existing problems and asked each professor vol- untarily to reduce his reserve list. In ad- dition, a letter was sent from the office of the director of libraries to all deans, directors, and department chairmen ask- ing them to reevaluate that part of their teaching program which required re- serve material in the library. Th·e total number of books which did not circulate during the year seems to indicate -that there is a correlation be- tween the number of titles on a reserve list and the number of times that a Copies Checkouts 927 3,829 256 1,348 2,547 10,700 3,197 9,032 6,927 24,909 title circulates. The following table shows that the percentage of titles never cir- culated rises rather sharply for lists longer than twenty titles. On the aver- age, of lists with 1-20 titles, 33 percent never circulated. However, of lists with 21 or more titles, 42 percent never cir- culated. As a result of these statistics it was de- cided to restrict future reserve lists to twenty titles per course. This restriction to twenty or fewer titles per course should place on reserve only those titles which are in high demand by the stu- dents enrolled in those particular courses and should eliminate from reserve those books which are not being used. It is presumed that all books recom- mended for reserve are selected for their importance in the subject under study. These books are thereby removed from the open-shelf collections in the several large reading rooms and also from the book stacks. Had those volumes which were unread in the closed reserve collection remained in the open collec- tions they might have attracted other readers several times over. Books on open shelves attract readers who are browsing as well as readers who want a specific book at a specific time. To be 108 I College & Research Libraries • March 1971 TABLE 2 CmcuLA.TION BY LEVEL OF INSTRUCTION AND SUBJECT DIVISION First Semester Circulation Titles Never % 1-3 % 4-8 % 9 or more % 000-199 Humanities 433 201 47 88 20 44 10 100 23 Sciences 63 24 38 19 30 8 13 12 19 Social Studies 374 144 39 66 18 39 10 125 33 Education 619 276 44 165 27 87 14 91 15 1,489 645 44 338 23 178 11 328 22 200-299 Humanities 238 95 40 86 36 32 13 25 11 Sciences 7 2 29 3 43 1 14 1 14 Social Studies 515 218 42 117 23 74 14 106 21 Education 307 110 36 114 37 33 11 50 16 1,067 425 40 320 30 140 13 182 17 300-399 Humanities 190 73 39 74 39 31 16 12 6 Sciences Social Studies 439 182 41 118 27 66 15 73 17 Education 401 195 49 126 31 39 10 41 10 1,030 450 44 318 31 136 13 126 12 TOTALS 3,586 1,520 42 976 27 454 13 636 18 Second Semester Circulation Titles Never % 1-3 % 4-8 % 9 or more % 000-199 Humanities 323 121 38 79 24 32 10 91 28 Sciences 168 39 23 59 35 29 17 41 25 Social Studies 206 36 18 38 18 33 16 99 48 Education 567 203 36 145 26 81 14 138 14 1,264 399 32 321 25 175 14 369 29 200-299 Humanities 107 33 31 44 41 16 15 14 13 Sciences 7 7 100 Social Studies 513 161 31 154 30 82 16 116 23 Education 490 190 39 157 32 63 13 80 . 16 1,117 391 35 355 32 161 14 210 19 300-399 Humanities 137 26 19 55 40 32 23 24 18 Sciences Social Studies 323 169 52 98 31 36 11 20 6 Education 355 149 41 109 31 49 14 48 14 815 344 43 262 32 117 14 92 11 TOTALS 3,196 1,134 36 938 29 453 14 671 21 Library Reserve System I 109 TABLE 3 Number of Titles Percent Not Per List Courses Titles No Circulation Circulating 000-199 % 1-20 231 1,297 429 33 21-- 37 1,456 615 42 200-299 1-20 89 620 225 36 21-- 35 1,564 591 37 300-399 1-20 72 560 196 30 21-- 28 1,285 598 47 effective in a closed collection each book must be in frequent and specific de- mand. According to the figures in Table 2, only 18 percent of all titles in the first semester and 22 percent in the second semester circulated nine or more times. These are the titles which rightfully be- long on reserve. By restricting the cir- culation of the other less-heavily used titles, the instructor had made it more difficult for students other than those in his classes to locate and use these books. In addition, the instructor may also have adversely affected the reading of these books by his own students. The tentative conclusion reached, as a result of the study, is that there is a rather substantial gap between the teaching methods of the professor and what the student reveals to be his study habits. One can only wonder if the findings of this Nebraska study are unique, or if they are true generally for all colleges and universities? If the an- swer is yes, is it not time for the teach- ing faculty and librarians to take an- other critical look at the reserve book program? Such a reexamin-ation, of course, requires close cooperation. The individual instructor may have to re- evaluate his teaching methods, but the librarian can assist by providing infor- mation on the effectiveness of the read- ing assignments given by the professor to his students. The vast field of paperback books has yet to be effectively utilized as an alter- native to the library reserve book pro- gram. Many thousands of basic books in all areas of knowledge are available in paperback editions. Many of these cost under three dollars each and the student community could probably afford (and should own) copies of those books which are particularly relevant to their needs and interests. The substituting of stu- dent-owned paperbacks for clothbound editions on reserve in the library would mean that libraries could use book mon- ey more effectively in collection build- ing, as well as free a great many hours of library staff time for other education- al duties. It is futile to hope that the reserve system can ever be fully abolished. Tra- ditions and patterns of library service are sometimes too deeply ingrained to undergo change. · However, continual review and modification of library pro- grams are essential · as safeguards against abuses. Above all, the reserve book system should not be permitted to be- come the end of the student's library ex- perience.